gotta like the attention to detail with the managers in that cartoon.

meanwhile, peep randy johnson's deep intensity and passion for playing for the yanks against the mets.
"Why should I make that game any more important?"

once again, his sentiments speak for the yankees as a whole, who treat this thing as a big yawn.

How do the Braves keep winning?

The thing about the US is that, besides Sheets, Prior, and Mulder, everyone is 30 or older. DR's starting lineup is ridiculous. Pujols, Vlad, Manny, and Papi in 1 lineup?!?!?! G'damn.

Excerpt from an interview with Michael Lewis:

"The news just can't be intelligent about baseball because news by definition is small samples. Because it's daily, right? The most typical opinion in sports is the opinion about something that just happened. If you listen to them, they are always rationalizing the most recent events. If someone hits a home run, it becomes a reflection of that person's whole career. And they make these vast generalizations about the home run. If someone walks in the game winning run, it's a reflection of that player's character. So it's always taking some event that just happened and trying to make it signify more than it does. There's an inherent idiocy in baseball commentary. It's particularly idiotic in baseball commentary because you do have this pool of data that's available from which you can actually make some pretty intelligent statements which is just being ignored in that moment because you want to explain that moment."

I agree completely with Lewis, but there's clearly no solution in sight because the daily papers need something to talk about, so they need to build up the importance of what happens every day. Otherwise, there's no reason to buy the paper. Plus, it's human nature to want to attribute greater meaning to every single event.

And all this is why I found it so hard to keep doing Baseball and Booze each week of the season, because there's not much that can be intelligently said about what happened during a single week of baseball. The preseason was always more fun to talk about because you could talk much more broadly about what had been done during the offseason and what we could expect at the macro level for the season.

Completely unrelated, Baseball America has projected rosters for the World Baseball Classic. This is gonna be awesome. The US has the strongest team. DR is close. The US has a lot more depth, but I don't think it'll matter much in this format. Each team is probably only going to need 3 starting pitchers. The US and DR lineups are pretty even, but DR's pitching is a little lacking after Pedro. Venezuela, on the other hand, has Johan and Zambrano, plus KRod out of the 'pen. But, their lineup is weak. PR and Japan are the only other teams that have a chance as far as I can tell. Then again, based on everything said above, any reasonably good team can win a one game semi-final or final, so overanalyzing the rosters is probably foolish.

Crap, I thought I wrote that it was from espn.com, sorry.

Numb3rs-

http://nytimes.com/2005/05/13/sports/13numbers.html

Wall Street Journal ALSO has an article (front page!) on why pitchers don't choose single digit numbers in today's issue, but alas, noone has a username/password for it.

Also, Brad, and everyone else, please source whatever articles you cutnpaste. Just a pet peeve of mine, but a viable one I think.

Another former Met!

NEW YORK -- Chicago White Sox utilityman Jorge Toca was among 11 players given 15-game suspensions Thursday for violating baseball's minor league steroids policy.

	Toca

Toca, 30, is hitting .273 with eight homers and 19 RBI with Triple-A Charlotte. He appeared in 25 games with the New York Mets over the 1999-2001 seasons, hitting .259 with no homers and 32 RBI in 175 at-bats while playing first base and left field.

Toca split 2004 with Cancun in the Mexican League, Montreal's Triple-A team at Edmonton and Detroit's Triple-A team at Toledo. He signed a minor league contract with the White Sox on Jan. 4 and spent part of spring training in Chicago's major league camp.

either way, reports of the yankees' demise were greatly exaggerated.

everyone hoped on this kill the yanks bandwagon, but obviously the worst perpetrator was the ny post. on sunday, joel grr-man had a 3-page (!) story on the reasons for the end of the dynasty. but while roc-a-fella may be fading the yanks aren't.

they head west to beat up on the mariners and a's again, which will give them the perfect head of steam to come to shea and ravage the mets.

the glass is always empty.

oh, and the post has already christened tom glavine as "tom horrific" his mike vick name is Dante Arizona.

Whoa there ryan...let not let the statistics blind us [you]. While Giambi might have that OPS, let's look at his actual numbers. His OBP is still a solid .386, but at the same time, he's slugging .325 -- same as Tony Womack. Combined with the fact that he has displayed an Aram-like ability to not make contact with any outside pitches this season and that the ancient Tino Martinez is valued as a better defensive player than him (Giambi's made 3 errors in 4 games) AND that he's been declining for 2.5 seasons now, it's safe to say that Giambi is not an elite player anymore, and in my opinion he's not even a passable player anymore. In fact, is you beleive the numbernazis at baseballprospectus, he's just barely above average w/a WARP-1 at .3.

For a $13.5 million player to be hitting less than his weight, well, that's just unacceptable. Who knows what's going on in his psyche, but the press has always made Giambi seem like a emotional person, so maybe this gigantic sucktitude is a result of psychological issues. Whether, and where, these issues (psychological and physical) can be best resolved is still up for debate. I say, if he agrees, the Yanks send him down until Tino cools off (i.e. returns to being old and bad), and hope that he can get his confidence back up in the minors, and see what he can provide if/when he returns.

And I thought of a new nickname of Tom Glavine. Remember how Tom Seaver was "TomTerrific" (before he became "Tom Crazy old man" in the broadcast booth), I'd like to christen Tommy G. as "Tom Terrible."

I got home last night, and the first thing I heard when I put on Baseball Tonight was "the big story out of New York" about Giambi meeting with Torre and Cashman to figure out what's wrong. Everyone's saying he has to go to the minors.
Giambi's clearly off to a poor start, but just to put it in perspective, here's the OPS's for some Yankees:

Giambi .711
Posada .709
Matsui .688
Womack .655
Bernie .603

Giambi's hitting better than half the lineup.
Some other pretty good hitters with a lower OPS than Giambi:
Durazo .708
M.Young .692
Loretta .686
Beltre .629
V.Mart .620
Lowell .587
Chavez .555

And looking back to last year, here are some OPS #s through May 10 of 2004:
Jeter .519
Huff .554
Ichiro .695

Boy, those guys sure were done.

i recently read that the mets could have a glut of starting pitching by the all-star break, with pedro, glavine, benson, zambrano, ishii, heilman and trash-el.

wow, what a collection of crap!

who needs kazmir? who needs the quik-e-mart?

Mike & the Mad Dog both think that trading Cameron for Tanyon Sturtze is a perfectly reasonable idea. Sturtze's ERA:
2002 5.18
2003 5.94
2004 5.47
2005 4.97

Tom Glavine needs 164 innings for his option ($8m + $2.5m in incentives) to kick in.

For absolutely no reason, I present some random Dave Mlicki facts:
-He made over $20 million during his career!
-If things had gone differently, he might have been a pretty good reliever. In 1996, his only season out of the 'pen, he had an 83/33 K:BB ratio in 90 innings, with a 3.30 ERA. His most similar player after that year is Tim Worrell.
-His 2 most similar players are Sidney Ponson and Pete Schourek.
-Mlicki has a career postseason ERA of 0.00 in 5 innings, but is 0-1.
-In June '98, he and Greg McMichael were traded to the Dodgers for Nomo. McMichael was traded back to the Mets a month later.
-McMichael was originally acquired by the Mets in a trade for Paul Byrd, who came to the Mets in the same deal (Burnitz to the Tribe) that brought Mlicki.
-McMichael's most similar player through the age of 29 is Dooley Womack, whose real name is Horace Guy Womack.

Jason Phillips: .313/21 rbi
Ramon Castro: .192/2 rbi
Kaz Ishii: ????

I'd like a do-over on that trade.

Well, it comes down to Yanks management deciding that they wanted Unit and Bernie rather than Beltran and Vazquez. I don't see how that makes any sense. 2 guys on last legs, who could maybe go 2 more years at most; or 2 guys who are still in their late-20s and could anchor a team for a good 5 years? Someone want to explain that to me?

Reyes couldn't even bat in the 8th last night without laughing. Apparently Dougie Mient was on the steps trying to get everyone to be quiet, and gave him a big hug after he grounded out. Awww.

I love RCN cable. But I hate Glavine. Think he'll accept a demotion like Trachsel did back then?

I also hate how the NY papers are so pro-Yanks. Even when they lose, they make the back page ahead of the Mets. Dicks.

The Mets are giving every ticketholder from last night a free ticket to one of four games.
Apparently, when the count went to 3-2 on Reyes last night, the fans were chanting "walk, walk, walk". Troo.

Here's an article in which Tom House says he was using steroids in the '70s.
"House estimated that six or seven pitchers on every staff were 'fiddling' with steroids or growth hormone."

Big news of the day seems to be the Yankee moves. Cano in, Bernie out. Womack and Matsui moving.
It seems like a panic move to me.
Cano (or "Canoe" as Mad Dog is calling him) has been tearing it up in AAA, but his career isn't that impressive overall. PECOTA projects him to hit about as poorly as Bernie's been hitting so far. And he's apparently a terrible defensive player.
And as poorly as Bernie's hitting, Womack is hitting just as poorly. Considering their track records, why not bench Womack if you're so desperate to get Cano in the lineup. Womack will probably end up being the worst hitting LF in the majors. Really, the Yankees need to get a CF, which they should've realized over the offseason. But, do they really have anything to trade at this point? Cameron would be a perfect fit, but there's nothing I'd want from the Yanks in return.

And Unit's going to miss a start, which is nice. Wang and Henn in the rotation? It seems like the Yankees chose the wrong year to stop carrying 7 starters.

Anyway, it's nice to see the Yankees in panic mode. They'll probably trade for a CF, get Clemens back in August, and make the playoffs again. But, maybe this is finally the year where things go wrong.

mushnick will be all over the 2 hour, 15 minute rain delay at shea tonite. why not call the game and do a double-header any of the next 3 days the phils are in town? instead they play before an empty house in miserable conditions and piss off the fans that came throo in the rain at 7 and left after an hour.

i'm just mad because the game was supposed to be on espn and i waited around watching the reds and cards but when the mets game finally started espn never switched back or put it on espn 2, even tho espn 2 was showing absoutely nothing.

The Channel 11 news just came on during the Mets' rain delay. The lead story was Selig's new tougher steroid plan (3 strikes, you're out!). For some reason, while the anchor was explaining the story, they showed highlights from today's A's-Mariners game. They then cut to a clip of Canseco walking and wearing an A's jersey, which I guess somehow linked the steroid story to today's A's game.

And congrats to Jose Reyes, who finally got his OBP above his batting average... by getting hit by a pitch. Actually, the replay indicated that the pitch never hit him, but still good. And what do you know, he scored! Now all he needs is a walk. Come on, Jose, all I'm asking for is one walk. Just one! OK, I'm probably going to ask for more after that, but I'll be happy with one for now.

wouldn't a savvy manager see these stats and not start 'tom horrific' agains the braves?

Glavine's had eight reunions with the Braves since departing as a free agent after the 2002 season, and he's 1-7 with a 9.36 ERA.

true.

I don't think it's dumping to trade piazza and glavine. obviously major moves like this happen mid-summer and not now so we'll see how the mets are then. but i do not think the mets are a playoff team. we were a game out last year but we all knew it wasn't happening but instead they make the move for right now.
even if we make a run for the wild card to the end of september, i don't think it's worth it to hold on to glavine and piazza, especially since piazza is a free agent after this season.

not that i want any of their poop prospects, but wouldn't glavine look good in pinstripes? him and the big unit can have contests to see who can makre the more droopy dog face.

I think Chump is right that Floyd should be the one to go if we make a move. Cameron's value is at an all-time low, and Floyd's is on the rise. That being said, I don't know if I'd be in such a rush to make a move. Floyd and Cameron are both questionable health-wise, and Diaz is still somewhat of an unknown. He's putting up huge numbers, but it's only been a month, and this performance is pretty out of line with his minor league performance. I think he'll be a pretty good hitter, but I'm not 100% sold that he's going to be that good this year. I think I'd wait a little while to make a move. Once Cam comes back, work Diaz into the lineup a few days a week, which should help to keep Floyd and Cam healthy. If the Mets are going to win this year, considering Floyd's injury history, I think they need a pretty good 4th outfielder. Plus, this way, we'll get a little more time to see if Diaz is for real before we count on him to be the starter for the rest of the year.
As for Piazza, I think it's a little early to start thinking about making mid-season dumps considering that it's April and the Mets are a half game out.

victor diaz has definitely earned the right to stay up in the biggs, but cameron is coming back soon. rumor has it omar is still trying to unload him, which i think is a mistake. cliff floyd's trade value increases by the day, he should be the one to go as there is no telling when his next injury will be. glavine should go by midseason as well. piazza too, he has thrown out 1 of 21 base-stealers this season.

I think the mets will be around a .500 club this year. no reason to hang on to these three veterans.

When asked if he was hurt, Ohka conceded "a little bit."
But he wouldn't elaborate.
"I don't want to tell you," he said.

clemens stats so far are str8 up dumb:

YEAR	G	GS	CG	IP	H	R	HR	BB	SO	K/9	W	L	Sv	P/GS	WHIP	BAA	ERA
2005	4	4	0	28.0	16	1	1	6	32	10.29	1	0	0	74.5	0.79	.165	0.32

Ishii threw 11 straight balls.
He's no Ravi.

I'm not sure how long this 'trend' can last, but i'm enjoying this rash of complete games. I went to dodger stadium today and watched Jeff "Dream" Weaver twirl a 5-hit complete game. I pay to see the big boys pitch, not chumps like john franco.

On a related note, i'm sure everyone else has been reading the articles hinting at the fact that it's the relievers who have been the real juice-abusers, and now that The H is O, scouts have been noting relievers losing a bit of zip and endurance.

Not John Franco, he just keeps chugging along. And Mike Stanton.

A new era begins!

"KC- Joe McEwing was called up from the minors on Wednesday April 13."

why do i have a funny feeling, as the 0-3 mets head into atlanta, that the piazza/randolphy 'victory cigar' will become a running joke for this team?

the mets, for the past 4 years now, have a disturbing habit of making ordinary pitchers look like the second coming of ferguson jenkins.

Obviously, I didn't see the Mets opener on Monday, but this caught my eye from the Prospectus recap:
"Wagner throws his obscene slider to Reyes. The pitch so befuddles him that with the pitch a foot inside and at his shoetops, Reyes swings and misses at it--and gets hit on the foot with the pitch. "

Not quite as ridiculous as Saro getting hit in the chest while swinging, but still pretty funny.

As of this moment, Jason Giambi has been hit by 3 pitches this year. Every other batter in the majors has combined for 6. He's back, baby!

It's hard to say what exactly needs to be done to make the Mets better, cuz they seem to have done that. Other than a bullpen, the only thing I can say is that they need to cut down on injuries. However, I see no reason why they can't finish ahead of Washington and the Braves at the very least.

all i care about this year is the mets getting to .500, which could still leave them in 4th, but still, I'd be happy with it. The other goal i wanted to see accomplished this year already happened with the waiver of super joe. will he pull a mel mora with the royals? hahahaha.

According to the PECOTA depth charts on Prospectus, the Mets are projected to finish 4th. Here are the win totals for the division:
Phillies 88
Braves 81
Marlins 80
Mets 79

The Mets projection is still based on Trachsel starting, so it'll fall a win or two once the Ishii trade is taken into account.

[Tues. update - somehow, the Mets are now projected for 81 wins, partially because they're projecting more playing time for Piazza now that Phillips is gone, which is somewhat dubious. Braves were bumped up to 82, so we're in 3rd. ZIPS projections have Mets in 2nd with 88 wins, 2 games behind the Phillies. Huzzah!]

I'm watching this absurd Congressional hearing right now. Hall of Famer Senator Jim Bunning took a pot shot at Barry Bonds by stating that Willie Mays and Hank Aaron didn't hit more homeruns in their late 30s than their late 20s. I didn't choose those two players, he did. Unfortunately for him, his statement isn't really accurate for Aaron. Aaron had his career high in homeruns at the age of 37, hitting 47 homers despite only playing 139 games. Aaron missed a lot more time in his late 30s, but if you look at his numbers per at bat, he hit a lot more homers than in his late 20s. Aaron had his best HR rate when he was 39. In fact, his entire late 30s was his best period. His rates during his age 35-39 seasons rank as 5 of his best 6 HR rates. In total, from age 35-39, he hit one HR per 11.8 ABs. From age 25-29, he hit one HR per 15.1 ABs. That's a pretty significant difference, almost 11 HRs over the course of a 600 AB season.

Now I just heard Bunning complain that the ball is "much more souped up" than it was in his day. Why stop at juiced players? Let's have a Congressional hearing about juiced balls.

Wait, now he's complaining that pitchers aren't pitching inside anymore! And that the fences are too short! Sadly, I'm not making this up.

Nice to see that our tax dollars are being spent on a worthy cause.

Morons.

Absolutel Morons.

In a mets.com poll, joe mcewing received 54% of the vote, by far the winner, in a poll asking which backup infielder the mets should keep.
marlon 'the bird' anderson is my choice. why? because his name is not joe mcewing.

It's the sequel to Being John Malkovich.

being jose oquendo?

Best class ever!

ummm, I'm not quite sure what to say about this.

Just put the game on at mlb.com, and there's super joe, striking out as usual on a head-high fastball.

"Joe McEwing, who doesn't figure to make the team as a backup infielder, has drawn some interest from his former club, the Cardinals. Arizona and Anaheim have also inquired about him"

doesn't figure to make the club??? what!!?!?!?! my man super-joe???

Amusing read- The Best Roto Team of All Time

http://fantasysports.yahoo.com/analysis/news?slug=rotowire-hellimeotoeam&prov=rotowire&type=lgns&league=mlb

regarding Chump's post on homegrown players, at least the Mets will have Darryl around this spring training for his memories as a living whatcouldvebeen for all the kids in PStL.

-Learn from me kids, don't make the same mistakes I did. More specifically,
-David, remember to cut the coke first, then inhale.
-Jose, first you ask for sex, then you buy the dope, NEVER do it the other way otherwise they'll charge you for possession too.
-I remember in 86, me and Keith buried a key under the mound. I always knew that mustached bitch dug it up in the offseason.

&c.

The Mets hired Jerry Krause. Huh?

from my maznan Joel Grrrman:
Over four decades is it really possible the best position player that a big-market team like the Mets has been able to develop and keep for an entire career is Ed Kranepool? My kingdom for a Tim Salmon.
Wright has a gap-seeking compact swing that already jeopardizes Bernard Gilkey's team record of 44 doubles. (again imagine position players so bad that Bernard Gilkey owns a team record).

Pat Mahomes? That means we're in for some good lip lickin'

pat mahomes is back with the mets!!!

(played by michael jordan in the todd pratt movie)

i've read that petit could be up to fortify the bullpen by midseason, but he will likely begin the year at AA.

who is this kazmir guy? is he any good? hmm, guess the rays are just savvy drafters.

Prospectus came out with it's top 50 Prospects list. The Braves' Andy Marte is #1, which is bad news for the Mets. NY-related players:
13. Eric Duncan, 3B, New York (AL)
14. Scott Kazmir, LHP, Tampa Bay
15. Yusmeiro Petit, RHP, New York (NL)
19. Lastings Milledge, OF, New York (NL)

Discouraging article in the Times about Reyes:
Mackie Shilstone, a sports-performance expert "said he examined the 21-year-old Reyes for three days last October and determined 'in no uncertain terms' the root of Reyes's problems... Shilstone said he advised Reyes to visit him for two more weeks before playing in the Dominican Winter League and to see him for two weeks after the league ended to make any necessary adjustments to his conditioning regimen.
"'He chose none of the above,' Shilstone said. 'We didn't get to put all the pieces together. So I can't sit here and tell you the deficits are gone. I think the jury's out.'
Shilstone said he gave Reyes a 'partial plan,' about a fourth of an overall regimen that Shilstone feels is necessary to really put Reyes on safe ground. Shilstone surmised that Reyes, following his plan, began feeling better and thus assumed he was healthy."
Reyes said "he does only some of the exercises that Shilstone recommended because there were so many of them."

But don't worry. Omar's on top of things. When asked what Reyes is doing differently these days, he responded "That's a good question. I'm not sure. We monitor it with our trainers."

Let's face it, the Mets bullpen isn't going to be great this year. Looper's an okay closer, DeJean pitched really well in his brief stint last year, and then nobody else is really guaranteed a spot. Koo sounds like he could be a lefty specialist. Strickland could be a righty specialist (.570 OPS against righties last 3 years). Scott Stewart? Moreno? Seo? Ginter? Heath Bell? Blake McGinley? Heredia (ugh)?
It doesn't sound too disastorous, but none of those guys are striking the fear into the hearts of batters, either.
So I glanced at the PECOTA projections, and I was surprised to see a Met reliever with such a good projection.
Jose Parra ranks 25th in projected EqERA (ERA adjusted for ballpark), right behind Mariano Rivera, and right ahead of Curt Schilling.
Granted, it's based on very little data. He pitched 42 innings last year (14 in majors, 27+ in AAA), and only 23 pro innings in the 3 years before that. And he didn't finish the season because of a hip flexor injury.
Still, his #s were good in both AAA and the majors, and the Mets don't have many sure things in the bullpen, so it'll be nice to have him in Port St. Lucie.

Oh, wait, he won't be there because the Mets released him in November. Instead, he'll be pitching in Japan for Orix-Kinetsu.

you know it's spring training when you start reading "victor zambrano" and "unhittable" in the same sentance.

unless mike cameron is being vociferous and active about wanting out, why the hell would the mets try and move him??

Red Sox have it locked up again (from espn.com):

The Red Sox agreed to a minor league contract on Tuesday with first baseman Roberto Petagine, who played in Japan the last six seasons.

Petagine, 33, won three Gold Gloves, two home run titles and one Central League MVP award while playing for the Yakult from 1999 to 2002 and Yomiuri the past two years. The Red Sox invited him to spring training.

In parts of five major league seasons, he hit .225 with 10 homers and 43 RBI in 193 games for Houston, San Diego, the New York Mets and Cincinnati

In Japan, he hit .317 with 223 homers and 594 RBI in 756 games.

Petagine, 33, is a left-handed hitter and an excellent defensive first baseman who will try to take the place of Doug Mientkiewicz, recently traded to the Mets.

Nice little post showing that according to PECOTA, the Mets have the 2nd best lineup in the division. This is a pretty simplistic analysis, so I wouldn't start buying playoff tickets, but worth taking a glance at.

Wow, what timing! According to this column in USA Today:
"Look for Boston to sign Japanese superstar Roberto Petagine. He'll be a left-handed bat in left field and and come off the bench as an ideal successor to the departed Doug Mienkiewicz."

Unfortunately for the Sox, Petagine's coming off of a down year. Here's his avg/obp/slg for the last 3 years in Japan:
2002 .322/.438/.649
2003 .323/.457/.683
2004 .290/.409/.561

Supposedly, his knees are shot, and his defense is crappy. But he certainly has a good shot at still being a really good hitter.
Oh, and apparently, he played 86 games in the outfield in 2003, so I guess he could play some out there. How much worse can he be than Manny in the field?

If this gets done, that's one more reason for me to be a Sox fan.

[2/8 Update: Gammons says he's been signed for $750k. Sounds like a steal to me. Very little money, and if returns to pre-2004 form, he should end up forcing a platoon with Millar. Plus, according to ESPN, he's an "excellent defensive first baseman." I have no Japanese UZR #s, but if that's true, the Mets REALLY should've signed him (at least let him compete with Minky).]

well, the mets offseason moves are paying off in at least one category, they report a 200% increase over last year's preseason ticket sales and expect to have nearly 2 million tickets sold before opening day.

oh, the bullpen continues to shape up, tyler yates is out for the year.

Petagine vs Matsui
(edit from Ryan: Hideki Matsui)

2002 AVG OBA SLG HR RBI
Matsui 334 461 692 50 107
Petagine 322 438 649 41 94

2001 AVG OBA SLG HR RBI
Matsui 333 463 617 36 104
Petagine 322 466 633 39 127

wow.

Worst baseball record ever? Last year the Giants played veteran Kawai Masahiro until he he broke the world record for most sacrifice bunts.

had no idea helton was so good defensively. big mo cost us 27 runs!

Or they could have followed Ryan's advice from a few years ago and gone after Petagine.

Billy, here's the dope defensive stat you requested:
Based on his UZR from 2000-2003 (they aren't published for 2004), Mientkiewicz was the second best defensive 1B (behind Helton), and saved 17 runs per season over an average fielder.
Here are some relevant players:
Mientkiewicz 17
Tino 15
Travis Lee 13
Olerud 1
Delgado -2
Galarraga -12
Mo Vaughn -27

It's well known that I wanted Delgado, but since we didn't get him, it makes sense to get either Mientkiewicz or Lee. If Phillips is hitting well, maybe he can platoon with one of them. I think I'd go with Lee if he's 100% because he won't cost a prospect and will probably be cheaper, but I'm not really sure what his health status is.

Unless Ryan can provide some dope defensive stat, I am appalled by the Mientkiewicz signing. For stats like that, we could have thrown Phillips out there, or the huge dude from the end of last season, or even the kid we just traded (don't care if he's single A! bring 'im up!)

If he ever gets a hit, what are the odds the scoreboard would say "met-kiewicz"? Very good, I say.

To reiterate Chump's "wow", the 'stros had the balls to say they signed franco because "the postseason showed that we needed relief help". should have just said "we wanted an old, terrible pitcher."

D'oh!
Delgado signs with Marlins.
Paging Travis Lee.


Is he being over paid?
Is he unlikely to still be performing well in the final year of the deal?
Probably yes to both, but the same thing can be said for Pedro and Beltran. I've been saying all along that if the Mets are going to make these moves, they have to go all the way. As things stand now, they're probably the 4th best team in the division.

john franco signed with the astros for 700 g's.

wow.

sports illustrated also has an article this week about omar minaya and how his ethnicity is wooing marquee players to the mets and how, overall, the mets are becoming "latinized."
the article gives scant attention to the real reason pedro and beltran came here, and why delgado would come here if he does, dinero. plain and simple.
furthermore, I would say the mets have long been a 'latin' team, as have many other teams in beisbol. the late 90's mets, alfonzo, ordonez, mo-ti, harmando, cedeno, etc. i mean, i guess we now have our first 'latino' superstar (does kieth count? el sid?), but i think it discredits latinos as a whole to still view them as this cliquey, insular minority rather than a diverse force fast approaching majority status in los grandes ligues.

Good article by SI's Tom Verducci about amphetamines in baseball. My personal take on both steroids and amphetamines is that the issue should be the health of players. If a large percentage of players are using a drug to enhance their performance, it puts pressure on everybody else to do it. And it's unfair to the rest of the players to give them the choice of (1) not perform as well as all the enhanced players or (2) suffer short-term or long-term medical problems. I haven't really been convinced that either steroids or amphetamines are all that dangerous if done in a controlled manner, but I think that should be the issue: how damaging are these drugs.

Anyway, here are some excerpts from the article:

Caminiti: "I would say there are only a couple of guys on a team that don't take greenies before a game. One or two guys. That's called going out there naked. And you hear it all the time from teammates, 'You're not going to play naked, are you?'

Former outfielder Chad Curtis agreed with Caminiti: "You might have one team where eight guys play naked and another team where nobody does, but that sounds about right. Steroids are popular, but quite a lot more guys take [amphetamines] than steroids. I'm talking about illegal stuff. Speed ... ritalin, which is legal only with a doctor's prescription ... sometimes guys don't even know what they're taking. One guy will take some pills out of his locker and tell somebody else, 'Here, take one of these. You'll feel better.' And the other guy will take it and not even know what it is."

"Curtis added that amphetamine use is so prevalent that non-users are sometimes ostracized as slackers."

Is anyone really surprised that Cameron doesn't want to shift to RF now? He probably figured there was no way the Mets were getting Beltran and wanted to look good. Asshole.

Also, why isn't Blyleven in the HOF? Seriously, his stats stack up pretty well against most other players. Almost 300 wins, 3700 K's, a pretty decent career ERA (3.31). I mean, he lost 250 games, but still, I think he should be in.

In an apparent youth movement, the Mets will sign Galarraga (he's 43!) to a minor league deal and invite him to spring training.

while pedro is one of my favorite players in all sports, and while the move to the n.l. away from facing the yankees N times a year, in my opinion, is personally good for him, i kinda wish some other NL team had taken the big gamble on him.
the mets have a lot of holes, they need a first baseman, a right fielder, a left fielder (floyd clearly wanted out by the 2nd half), a catcher either in the near-term but def for the long-term, possibly a 2nd baseman if kaz pulls a knoblauch (and i don't mean having sex with derek jeter), a long reliever, an 8th inning guy, and a frontline starter that can go longer than 6 innings.

the money spent on pedro could be spent on a bunch of medium guys who would fill a lot of the holes.
that being said, pedro is definitely a smart enough pitcher to be able to dominate the likes of most of the n.l. for the next year or two. doo-de-doo.

the nite the pedro news broke, espn ran a top 10 of worst mets moves of all time. the humongous ghost of mo vaughn looms large in more ways than one.

Rule 5 draft day!
Oh Boy!
I don't know how I didn't know this, but add to the list of good players who were taken in the Rule 5 draft: Roberto Clemente. I guess Johan's path to "greatest Rule 5 Draftee Ever" won't be that easy. The Pirates took Clemente from the Brooklyn Dodgers. In the Dodgers' defense, he didn't really become good until his 6th season in the majors, and the Pirates could afford to use him because they stank.
Well, the good news about today was that the Mets didn't lose anybody, which was fortunate because both Blake McGinley and Royce Ring had a chance of being taken.

According to multiple papers, the Mets may get Manny! Floyd and Matsui?

And Olerud!

Wait a minute, according to boston.com, the Mets have reached a deal with Pedro for 4 years and $50-56 million. I guess we're not getting Manny.

apparently, the a's tim hudson is availible. imagine if we had scott kazmir as a chip to get him. but you know what, we really needed to shore up that #5 starter's spot. -phew- glad that's been taken care of. oh wait...

someone far more intelligent than I offers a fitting note of departure for Mike "second-ugliest met to dave weathers" Stanton...


Michael Wolverton, a San Francisco-area computer research scientist who also writes for Baseball Prospectus, an influential statistics think tank, devised a system by which each situation a reliever can enter - bases loaded with one out, man on first with two out, etc. - is converted into the number of runs that typically score. The reliever is then judged by how many runs he allows either above or below average.

Wolverton's statistic, called inherited runs prevented, not only counts the pieces of runs a reliever either saves or allows, but also adjusts for runners he may bequeath to a pitcher who follows him.

The Royals' Nate Field, despite his rather pedestrian 3.77 E.R.A., is the 2004 leader in Inherited Runs Prevented with 8.0 total runs saved. On Tuesday, Field entered a game with none out and the bases loaded, and got three straight outs to save Kansas City 1.92 runs.

Inherited runs prevented also shows just how disastrous the Mets' Mike Stanton has been in 2004. Though Stanton, a veteran left-hander, had a 3.75 E.R.A., he did not save any runs but in fact cost his team 6.3 runs, third worst in the majors.

Quick comments, then back to my finals. I'm not too upset about any of this from a Mets perspective (although it's not what I would have done). The Yanks, on the other hand, are making a lot of dumb moves.

Leiber, Benson, and Wright all signed for about the same money. Wright is coming off a very strong season, but now that he's not with Leo Mazzone anymore, it seems very possible that he'll revert to form and this will be a disaster for the Yanks. Leiber clearly has a better track record than Benson, but I can see the logic in not giving your 3 year deal to a pitcher who will be 35 on opening day. Close call. But really stupid move by the Yanks for not exercising the option on Leiber. Could've had him for $8 mill for one year.
Womack stinks. If he's their everyday player at 2B next year, big mistake. But if they eventually replace him, he could be a useful utility guy/pinchrunner.
And it sounds like the Yanks are going to get Milton for Benson/Wright/Leiber money, which is really dumb because he's a very mediocre pitcher and does horribly against lefties. Leiter for 1 year probably would've been a better move if they were desperate for a lefty.
I'm sorry to see Leiter go, but I can live with it. It does put a lot of pressure on Omar to sign Pedro now, because his other options are dwindling. Matt Clement!

Moises Alou?
Boo!
How 'bout JD Drew?

last winter, every yankee move gave me the scary shivers. the bad scary shivers, because every move seemed so dope. 'dream' weaver for kevin brown? soriano for a-rod? flash gordon?
this winter, umm, "tuff" wright and "mowack "womack?"

why aren't we in play for jon leiber? we know he can pitch well in new york. we know he is a power pitcher (well, compared to our 'finesse' staff) and we are willing to blow big bucks on kris benson.

and way to let go one of the two most popular mets from over the past 6 years. apparently, the mets offered Sen. Al Leiter (R-NJ) a contract, Sen. Al accepted, and then the mets retracted. wow, class all the way.
what makes it worse is that, supposedly, the marlins contract contains a deal to do broadcasting for them after he retires. that's cool, tom seaver is the best in the biz anyway. ("arguably the best pitcher of all time" according to the new bill james abstract).

So how soon before the Mets sign Denny Neagle? I mean, he seems like a good fit, with the injuries and soliciting ho's and all.

Howard Stern uncovered why the Mets paid so much for Benson. Anna Benson told Stern that "I told [Kris], cheat on me all you want. If you get caught, I'm going to s- - -w everybody on your entire team — coaches, trainers, players. I would do everybody on his whole team."

Obviously, Minaya assumed that he'd be included.
And as further evidence, here's another quote from Anna:
""I helped with negotiations . . . I went back and forth a lot with that. He didn't even have anything to do with that. I did that deal . . . I laid out a lot of the terms."

Harmando Boo-Nitez and his giant ass have signed with the SF Giants. possibly $7 mil a year for the worst postseason closer in modern history.
Are the giants serious about winning the world series for the first time since bouncing from ny? or are omar vizquel and boonitez the magic bullets missing from the revolver for a team that needed hits from heads besides barry?

if the mets are willing to spend so much for a player clearly declining/past-his-prime like sosa why not spend it on pedro? i think pitching in the NL, in a park like shea, getting away from pitching agains the yanks so much would benefit him greatly.

my prediction if sosa becomes a met? .240, 30 HRs, 79 rbi. is it that brazy a predicion? peep his 03 numbers.... .253, 35 HRs, 80 rbis, .332 OBP.
why all the energy and time wasted this year on getting sosa yet so little on vlad last winter? when will the mets learn not to go after power guys but high average guys?
the myth of sissiphus lives on....

Bonds' OBP if he had gone hitless for the whole year would still be .391, which is the same as Vlad's, and higher than Beltre's.

That's fucked up. Just rename the award already.

si to guillen (although it might involve giving up piazza)
no, por favor no, to sosa (owed $39.5 total over the next 2 years)

this article made me want to vomit into my bandwagon boston hat...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=schoenfield/041109

the d'backs fired wally backman.

that's what he gets for poo-pooing on even interviewing with the mets.

is it just me, or does shea-hey willie randolph's omnipresent, goofy smile and vacant stare not exactly inspire confidence?

of course, as ryan says, in the end, it doesn't really matter who the manager is, as long as we've got the dope players on the field.

minaya reportedly loves orlando cabrera. hmmm, sign The O.C., put him at short, trade reyes for kazmir? olerud at first?

The Yankees have talked to the Rangers about acquiring Soriano for pitcher Javier Vazquez, a source told the New York Times.

-sure, why not?

Mannyfest Destination
last nite was beautiful. This postseason and what the Red Sox accomplished is the perfect example of why baseball is the best sport.
Standing amidst the wild celebration outside the riviera was a little melancholy, because I thought of how far the mets are from even approaching the cardinals talent level, let alone the red sox, and seeing all these red sox fans come out of the woodwork, whooping it up made me want to experience the thrill of a mets victory here in new york, we were just kids the last time, which makes it all the more maddenning that we are so far from our own celebration.
props to the dominating domincans.

My theory is: all Times sports columnists are blowhards. Murray Chass eats my fucking balls.

more badness from the times...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/sports/baseball/27rhoden.html

More goodness from the Times:
Article on WFAN caller Jerome from Manhattan.

An excerpt: "overhearing his mother talking on the telephone about his Social Security disability payments, he hollered: 'Don't give me the check! Send it to the Yankees! Get more players!'"

Good article from the NYT Week in Review about clutchness that features a nice quote from Orel Hershiser, a pitcher who I'm sure has often been described as clutch:

"Some people will perform better in the clutch, but I think guys are sometimes lucky. I'm not sure if there's enough of a sampling to know if it's about the guy."

Totally unrelated, here are some nifty scouting reports.

John Kruk is an idiot. He said on "Fact or Fiction" that Jason Varitek should catch for Tim Wakefield tomorrow. That would makes all sorts of sense:

1) If it did.
2) If the whole world hadn't seen Varitek have three passed balls last week.
3) If Kruk wasn't a blowhard.

Seriously, I've had it with these ESPN announcers who are paid to yell or make bullshit opinions so jerkoff fools who agree with them feel smart for once.

wow, read this last sentance...
"Instead, the images of the Yankees' lack of heart were everywhere -- from Hideki Matsui leading off the second inning swinging at a borderline 2-0 pitch, despite being down by six runs; to A-Rod being booed by Yankees fans after his final at-bat of the season; to Tom Gordon, who, according to one team source, was so unnerved by October pressure that he was throwing up in the bullpen during Game 6."

Who's Your Papi?
Wow! What the hell happened the last four days? What a blur. It seems like an eternity has passed since Saturday night. The Yanks were one inning away from a sweep, with Mariano on the mound. And now, after lots of Papi, Schilling's unbeliavably courageous performance, Derek Lowe coming off the scrap heap, Bellhorn breaking out of his slump with a huge homerun, and Damon breaking out of an even bigger slump with the grand slam, the Sox have somehow triumphed. And on the other side, we see Rivera blow 2 saves, Torre make very questionable moves, ARod cheat, and Jeter slug .233.
And I have to say, while my rooting didn't quite reach the level of the Mets in the postseason, it was pretty damn close.
Go Sox!

You may have noticed that the Red Sox beat the Yankees. That was cool.

thanks fox!
after a tiring weekend, i fell asleep on the couch at midnite, thus missing the end of game 4! and i'm sure i'm not the only person on the east coast who fell asleep long before the game ended.

but hey, at least viewers in oregon, washington, idaho, california, nevada and arizona got to enjoy the game in its entiriety and still enjoy a full night's rest, because, well, those are the people who want to see the game the most.

You know what really aggravases me?

The Mets- the METS!- swept the Yankees this year. Remember that? Yeah. The METS!

Stupid Sox, not winning a game.

The one thing about the Ortiz at-bat in Tuesday's game is that he was 5-10 off Rivera and didn't have good numbers against Flash, even if Rivera is Rivera. That didn't seem to bother Mariano Wednesday night, though, when he blew two cutters past him (but nearly gave up a homer on the other).

First off, dumb move by Francona not brining in Foulke in the 8th instead of Timlin. That was a critical inning against the best part of the Yankees lineup. Put your best guy in.
Dumb move by Torre as well, not bringing in Rivera to face Papi. Rivera's been much tougher on lefties than righties over the last 3 years (502 OPS vs. 629). Lefties against Gordon: 619. Of course, if the ball had gone into Matsui's glove instead of bouncing off it... Boy, there was a lot of shitty play in LF last night.
As for the issue about whether Myers should have come in to face Matsui in the 8th, not as ridiculous a non-move as I would have thought. Lefties over the last 3 years have a 716 OPS against Timlin and a 684 OPS against Myers, so not a very big diff diff. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that Foulke should've been on the mound in the first place (lefties with a 572 OPS against).

Now that I've thought some more about it, although the Cards are the clear favorite, I guess I wouldn't be totally shocked if the Astros pulled the upset. Backe and Munro haven't been that bad.

And finally, there are some ridiculously good players batting second for their teams right now. ARod, Walker, Beltran, Bellhorn. Which one of these doesn't belong? (hint: he's the one who did one hell of a Carl Everett impression last night).

Well, I’ll be damned. Game 2 of the Braves-Astros series is being played as I write this. I’m not watching it, but I just checked the game on the internet, and the Astros are winning 2-0 on 2 solo shots. One by Jeff Bagwell and one by Raul Chavez.
Raul Chavez!
Raul Chavez had 162 at-bats this season and hit no homeruns. Only 2 players had more at-bats without a dinger: Jamey Carroll (who actually had a decent year) and Brent Mayne. Nobody else was particularly close to 162 ABs. 523 people hit a homerun in the majors this year. Raul Chavez was not one of them. He is now one of 22 people to hit one during the playoffs. Even forgetting about homeruns, Chavez was one of the worst hitters in baseball this year. The only players with a worse OPS and at least 100 at-bats were Doug Glanville, Andy Green (who?) and Damian Rolls. So, I’d say its pretty damn surprising that he’s even starting a game in the postseason, let alone hitting a homer. Even more surprising is that he hit it off Mike Hampton, who was pretty stingy this year, allowing only 15 homers.
The only thing that comforts me somewhat about this is that Chavez does have 2 homers earlier in his career, as well as 32 career AAA homeruns in 2,538 at-bats, which is a lot of AAA at-bats. So, in the end, I guess I’m happy for the guy. He’s been toiling in the minors since 1990. He’s had a few cups of coffee in the majors, but this is the first year he’s had significant playing time. He probably won’t have much more of a career, but he can always say he hit a homerun in a playoff game, and a fairly important one at that. Pretty cool for Raul Chavez.

Amazingly, Chavez isn’t the first person to hit a homer this postseason after not hitting one during the regular season. Tom Wilson hit a solo shot in his only at-bat during game 1 of the Dodgers-Cards game. Wilson didn’t hit any homers this year, but he only had 12 ABs (including 4 with the Mets!). He did hit 12 taters in 195 minor league at-bats, so this wasn’t all that shocking. There have been some other pretty surprising catcher homeruns this postseason, too. Both Mike Matheny and Brad Ausmus have gone yard. What the hell is going on?

Prophetic words Aram, that Moose would beat Johan "guaranteed". Last week's sweep wasn't particularly telling cuz they pulled Santana after like 4 or 5 innings to keep him fresh for the playoffs.

Cards (over Astros) over Sawx (over Yanks) (sorry Bryan)

I agree that Clemens will end up winning too. Sentimental pick by the writers.

Ravi's picks were quite eloquent. I agree with everything Ryan wrote except I'm taking the Astros.

the only thing i would disagree with is the nl cy young, where i would go with (as much as i hate to say it....) roger clemens. also, as much as i hate to say it, the yanks will beat the twins in three, maaaybe four. i think last week's sweep was particularly telling. moosina beats johan game 1, guaranteed.

(to the tune of "who needs the quik-e mart?")
whooo needs vladimiiir?
not wilpon, not wiiilpon.

Quick picks (without a ton of thought):

MVPs - Bonds and Vlad
Cy Youngs - Johan and Unit
First Round Playoff Winners:
Braves (tough call)
Cards
Red Sox
Twins

Go Twins!